The new OMM explains that, “Using a ‘Risk’ metric, any time a territory like this is contested, it weakens the prior occupier’s footing and destabilizes their hold on that particular region of Cyberspace. Fundamentalist mothers looking for the original page will be confused, join the wrong thing, or not join at all; it muddies the message and strengthens the position of the new occupiers. This new page might not garner all that many followers initially, but its presence WILL deny the previous owners their beachhead and create a blockade to one of their most persuasive channels.”

A project of the American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the original One Million Moms gained notoriety in February, when it launched a boycott of JC Penney for hiring Ellen DeGeneres as its spokeswoman. The effort failed spectacularly, leading the group to temporarily disappear from Facebook after fans of the lesbian talk-show host came flocking to OMM’s page. Detect the trend yet?

Although the name One Million Moms is relatively new, the group behind it is not. The American Family Association is Mississippi-based nonprofit founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon, who’s probably best remembered for his “campaigns for decency” against M*A*S*H, Disneyland/Walt Disney World and Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video. The organization has boycotted companies ranging from Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch to Hallmark and Pampers.

Its interest in comics isn’t new, either. Neil Gaiman pointed out over the weekend that the AFA is the same group that launched a crusade against The Sandman in the 1990s. We all know how well that turned out.

“Personally, I date the success of Sandman to the letter from the American Family Association’s ‘Concerned Mothers of America,’ which informed us that they had officially started to boycott Sandman. (We ran it in the letter column at the time.),” Gaiman wrote in 2003, when the group took aim at the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Pittsburgh Comicon. “That was the point at which sales began to go up, and they’ve never stopped. Based on that, I tend to see an American Family Association attack as a particularly good omen.”